Never Let your Friends down
by PaperLillie
Summary: Takes place during the events of Super Mario 3D World. When Luigi and Peach are behind, the ground beneath their feet starts to crumble. Peach has to make a hard decision, but can she prevent them both from falling? One shot; No slash, only friendship.


The sun was shining on a mountain surrounded landscape when six heroes sprinted along the stony cliff path. Mario and Toad were in the lead, followed closely by two Luigis.

...Wait a second, _two_ Luigis?!

The Double Cherries, an item which our friends had discovered just the other day, created an identical double of anybody who ate from it. Those doubles looked the same, had the same abilities and even the same personality as the original. To be honest, they were by far more than just doubles; each was an equal part of the original. As soon as one of them was hurt, it disappeared into smoke and air, until in the end only one remained, like it was before. Of course, this one didn't disappear just like that.

So our heroes ran along the mountain when a row of Blocksteppers appeared behind the ledge.

"There they are!" shouted Mario, and immediately they all took up the chase. When the Blocksteppers saw them, they got in a panic. They ran away as fast as they could so that the green sparkling star which one of them carried bounced along the clumsy steps. But it was this particular green star that the heroes really needed. Mario, Toad and the two Luigis didn't give up chasing after them. At the same time, Peach was somewhat behind.

"Hurry, or we'll lose track of them!" she shouted to a third Luigi, who was right behind her. Peach had just lost her last double, and since Mario hadn't been more careful either and Toad didn't even get a Double Cherry from the start, their green friend was the only one who was on the move in a threesome.

They made an effort to catch up with their friends, while Mario, Toad and the two Luigis already disappeared behind a ledge. Without any difficulty Peach then jumped across a cliff which lay a few steps in front of it. Luigi did just the same, when suddenly the ground broke directly beneath his feet, dragging him down into the deep.

"Luigi!" cried Peach.

When the dust cleared, Peach was leaning over the cliff with half of her upper body, while Luigi was hanging into the abyss, desperately trying to steady himself. She was grabbing his arms with all of her strength, but she couldn't move a bit from her position. Small stones flaked off the edge and fell into the seemingly bottomless abyss. Seconds went by which felt like an eternity when Luigi began to speak.

"Peach...You have to let go of me! Or you'll fall too!"

"No way! I won't let you go!" Her voice was severe, but she already felt the ground beneath her crumble.

"Hey, it's okay," he continued, his voice suddenly calm. Peach was shocked by those words, but he just looked at her with a sad smile. "The other two are surely fine. If I'm the only one who disappears, nothing will happen to me in the end. I'll be okay."

Peach bit her lip. She knew that he was talking about the doubles. But she didn't loosen her grip, not even a bit. "Stop talking nonsense!"

Luigi flinched from the sharpness in her voice.

"If I'd let you fall into the abyss just like that, what kind of princess would I be?!" she asked. "Besides...Besides, you're my friend! I won't let you down!" Her stern tone was gone and nothing but worry remained on her face.

"Princess!" Luigi exclaimed, utterly amazed.

"Listen! I'll count to three, and then you'll try to pull yourself up on me, okay?" Again, small stones broke off and fell into the dark.

"But -"

"No buts!"

The two were silent for one second, while Peach tried to stabilize her balance. "Okay, ready? One...two... _three!"_

Immediately Luigi started kicking and tried to pull himself up, but the ground began crumbling more and more beneath Peach's body. For a brief, fleeting moment she thought they'd both fall.

But at the last moment, Luigi managed to grip the edge and climb up to safety.

Several minutes later both of them were laying a few feet away from the cliff on the ground, catching their breath. They made it.

"...I'm sorry, surely your dress is covered in dirt now..." Luigi said, abashed.

"Oh, forget the dress!" Peach laughed. After all of this, how could he think about something as trivial as her dress? She slowly stood up. "Come on, let's see if we can find Mario and Toad!" she said, as she helped her friend back on his feet.

"I'm sure they're long gone by now," he sighed.

But to their surprise, they found Toad and Mario not far from the ledge from which they had disappeared. Toad had been shrunken down to a miniature size and Mario looked quite worn out; his overalls and the red shirt were completely covered in dirt.

"What happened to you?" Peach exclaimed with wide eyes. Not without worry, she looked up and down her beaten friends.

"A whole bunch of Fire Bros was waiting for us behind the ledge!" Mario almost laughed. "Um, luckily I still had a Fire Flower at hand…" He scratched the back of his head sheepishly.

"You mean lucky for _you!"_ squeaked the small blue Toad. "They hit me all at once, and the Luigi doubles also disappeared as soon as we turned the corner…!"

"...Hey, you okay bro?" Mario asked worriedly. He saw that with Toad's words, Luigi had paled slightly.

"H-Huh? What? Oh, no, e-everything's okay, don't worry," Luigi stammered as soon as he had regained his composure.

"And...what happened to you guys?" Mario said, smiling.

"Eh...nothing that we couldn't have handled," said Peach, "Right?"

Luigi smiled back and scratched the back of his head. "Um, yeah. Because...you don't let your friends down after all..."


End file.
